5. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to promote awareness of men's health issues? OQ58180

Llywydd, the Welsh Government supports the promotion of good physical and mental health for men through a range of existing public health strategies and programmes. These include, for example, our suicide prevention strategy and actions to promote early awareness of prostate cancer and heart disease.

I appreciate your response, First Minister. Thank you. This week is Men's Health Week, marked right up until Father's Day on Sunday. It is hoped that it will help spur men into thinking more about their health. And, really, we're particularly bad at looking after our own health, especially when it comes to mental health. First Minister, the theme of this International Men's Health Week is the DIY MOT. Resources are being provided online to help guide men to look after their health and to give their body and mind an MOT. Will you help spread awareness by undertaking a DIY MOT this week, and do you acknowledge the statistical element of men being less likely to talk about their physical and mental health problems? Thank you.

I thank the Member for that question, and it is by itself an opportunity to do exactly what he said, and I thank him for making those additional points. It is indeed International Men's Health Week. It started yesterday and will run until Sunday of this week, and it's there, as Gareth Davies said, to heighten awareness of preventable health problems for men of all ages. And there is no doubt that there is a cultural issue here, where men in Wales are less likely to report early signs of symptoms, less likely to be willing to carry out the sort of simple self-checks to which the Member referred. And, as a result, too often we see people presenting too late for treatment that otherwise could have been effective for them. So, I entirely agree that anything that we can do to persuade people to do those simple things that can help them is an important step in making sure that men who have health needs can get the help they need in as timely a way as is possible.